alphaMELTS 1.8

Download alphaMELTS

The current version is 1.8 posted on November 15th, 2017

α alphaMELTS software is available in compiled
executable form, for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Supplementary updates of the alphamelts
executable, without the ancillary files, are provided for bug-fixes and new features. A
lightweight Linux VirtualBox installation of alphaMELTS provides an alternative to activating
the 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' or installing the Perl program on Windows. See the
list of pros and cons
if you are trying to choose between WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) alphaMELTS, VM (virtual machine)
alphaMELTS and the native Windows version.

Click the button to download the compressed disk image (requires javascript).
The following software is preinstalled in VM alphaMELTS 1.8:

The button will download the 32-bit version. An alternative download link is
available (please log in!). Please see the *README*
for a package file list, a list of changes since previous alphaMELTS versions, and checksums for downloads.
To reset this page and display the WSL and VM alphaMELTS pros and cons,
click the DOWNLOAD tab above.

VM alphaMELTS has its own installation process that is not included in the main documentation.
Once completed, please read the Welcome to VM
alphaMELTS forum post. The VirtualBox board
will also have more specific information about copying files between host and guest operating systems,
working with 'snapshots' (rather like Windows' restore points) and updating 'Guest Additions'.
The various Operating System specific boards may help
in getting started with Lubuntu. A VM alphaMELTS version of the 'Double-click mode' tutorial will be
made available soon (or on demand), as drag-and-drop does not work in the same way as on other systems.

There are two options for updating VM alphaMELTS. The first is simply to update alphaMELTS and / or
rhyolite-MELTS within the virtual machine. Alternatively, you can replace the entire virtual machine with
the latest VM alphaMELTS version, which also updates Lubuntu and includes the current rhyolite-MELTS.

Before installing VM alphaMELTS for the first time:

If you have not done so before then Download VirtualBox. For Windows you should be able
to simply double-click the installer and choose default settings. Optionally, download and install the
Extension Pack for your version of VirtualBox. Reboot your computer after installing VirtualBox.

On the host operating system (i.e. probably Windows) make a folder to be shared with the VM alphaMELTS
guest. It is simplest, but not necessary, for the folder to be called 'Shared' and it can be located
anywhere in the user's homespace. Put a file in the folder for testing purposes (see later).

The 'Host key' is used to switch between different VirtualBox viewing options, such as seamless and fullscreen.
On Windows it defaults to one of the Ctrl keys but you probably want to reserve those for copying (Ctrl+C) and
pasting (Ctrl+V) between host and guest operating systems. To change the Host key to another one, e.g. Right Alt
or a combination of keys, open the VirtualBox Preferences and choose 'Input' ('Virtual Machine').

VM alphaMELTS can also be installed using VMware Fusion or Parallels but the installation procedure is slightly
different to VirtualBox. Please consult the relevant forum posts for VMware
Fusion or Parallels before starting.

To install VM alphaMELTS:

Download the MELTS_Lubuntu_32.ova or MELTS_Lubuntu_64.ova archive from above; there is no need to decompress it.
Whilst in general you should choose the version - 32-bit or 64-bit - that matches your operating system, specific settings
on Windows (e.g. to do with backwards compatibility with XP) can intefere with this assumption. Windows 8 users should use
the 64-bit version first but Windows 7 users will likely have more success with the 32-bit version.

As the file is large, it is worth making sure that it downloaded correctly by checking against the hash values in the
*README*
file. There are built-in checksum tools on Linux (md5sum; shasum) and
Mac (md5; shasum). Windows users can try the Microsoft File Checksum Integrity Verifier;
although Windows 7 and 8 are not listed, it works fine on these systems (apparently).

Open VirtualBox, select 'Import Appliance' from the 'File' menu. Navigate to the MELTS_Lubuntu_bits.ova file,
where bits is either '32' or '64'. Once installation is complete you will be able to delete the
MELTS_Lubuntu_bits.ova file.

The default memory allocation of 512 MB will be good for most modern systems but reduce it to between
256 MB and 384 MB if your machine has less than 1.5 GB RAM in total. Generally, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2
of the total RAM will work well. You can always adjust this quantity later.

You can increase this number of processors available to the virtual machine, up to the total number of
physical cores on the host (not including hyperthreading), but a single virtual processor should be fine in
most cases.

Make sure to check the 'Reinitialize the MAC address of all network cards' box, especially if you are using
this software for a class (else you may get network conflicts if anyone else in your department also uses VM
alphaMELTS).

Once VirtualBox has imported and set up the 'MELTS Lubuntu' machine, select it and click the Settings cog. Choose
'Shared Folders', at the bottom, and then select the 'Shared' Machine Folder. You can edit the folder using the middle
button or, better, delete and recreate it. Select 'Other' from the 'Folder Path' drop down menu and navigate to the
folder on the host system that you created earlier. This may reset the 'Folder Name' so change it back to 'Shared'.
Make sure the 'Automount' box is checked and, if available, also check the 'Make Permanent' box, before clicking OK.

You should now be able to start up the 'MELTS Lubuntu bits' machine. If the virtual machine fails to boot
properly: (1) close the window and power down the virtual machine; (2) exit VirtualBox and reboot your computer, i.e. the host
machine; (3) try starting the virtual machine again; (4) if it still does not work then download and installing the other version
(i.e. 32-bit or 64-bit); (5) delete the non-working virtual machine by right clicking on it, select 'Remove...', and then
'Delete all files'.

By default you will automatically
be logged in as a user called 'melts'. No password is required for logging in but it may be needed, for example,
if you want to update or install additional software. The password (which is case sensitive) is the former name of alphaMELTS,
as seen here or by clicking the HOME tab above. The machine state
is now like it would be if you had followed instructions in the 'Installation'
section of the documentation (including setting the PATH variable) with '/home/melts/bin' as the
links_folder. The installation_folder can be found within '~/MELTS'
(where '~' is shorthand for the melts user's home space).

There is a link to the Shared folder on the Desktop; double click it to make sure you can see the test file.
If you cannot see the file, then either the folder name on the host machine is not exactly named 'Shared'
or you are using VMware Fusion or Parallels. Open the LXTerminal program (the green icon near the top left hand corner)
and type './fix_shared_folder.pl'. Enter the name of the folder on the host machine and the script should ensure
that the desktop link points at it; if not please contact us and we will try to fix it.

To update the VM alphaMELTS components individually:

To keep Lubuntu up to date with security patches etc. use the 'Software Updater' link on the Desktop.
You may need to enter the password to install updates.

To update alphaMELTS, choose Linux alphaMELTS on the right for download links and instructions.
Use the version, 32-bit or 64-bit, that matches the VM alphaMELTS version. If you use the default locations for the
installation and links folders then the desktop alphaMELTS links will automatically point to the new version.

To update rhyolite-MELTS, download the new Ubuntu file from the Linux Download site. Unzip and use it to replace the file
in the MELTS folder your homespace. Make sure the new file is called Melts-rhyolite-public. If the old file had a
different name, or if you have renamed the MELTS folder, then open a Terminal and type 'cd bin', followed by 'ln -sf
../MELTS/Melts-rhyolite-public Melts-rhyolite' (replace '../MELTS' with
the correct path if necessary). This will ensure that the Desktop link works and that the updated
rhyolite-MELTS is available in the user's path.

To update the VM alphaMELTS installation:

First make sure that your working files are safely backed up! Copy all files to a location outside
the virtual hard disk so they can be transferred to the new virtual hard disk when you are done. Depending on the
number of files, there are at least two ways you can do this: (a) put them in the Shared folder, described above;
(b) use a cloud-based service, such as Dropbox or Google Drive, to store the files; (c) although currently
copying and pasting between host and guest only seems to work for text, in future it should be possible to
drag-and-drop files between the two systems (according to the VirtualBox website).

If you have enough (real) hard disk space, consider keeping a copy of the most recent machine state in case
any working files are accidentally overwritten or other problems occur; you might want to rename the old
'MELTS Lubuntu bits' machine by choosing the 'Settings' cog when the machine is powered down. Otherwise
delete the old 'MELTS Lubuntu bits' machine by right clicking on it, when off, and selecting 'Remove...'.
Make sure to choose the 'Delete all files' option or you will get an error in the next step.

Download the MELTS_Lubuntu_bits.ova archive and follow the installation instructions given above. If you
did not rename or remove the old 'MELTS Lubuntu' machine in the previous step then check that the new one has a
different name in the Appliance settings.

Consult the documentation (please right-click and choose 'Save As...' or similar)
to get the alphaMELTS software running correctly,
including the sections on 'Setting up alphaMELTS', 'Bugs and Fixes', and
'What to do if (pH)MELTS misbehaves' (opens in a separate window). Also check the
Errata and bug fixes section of the
alphaMELTS support page for any temporary problems and workarounds (last updated November 15th, 2017).

Note: the alphaMELTS
GitList server contains the very latest versions of the scripts and example files for
alphaMELTS. Some of these files may be under development and will not necessarily work
correctly with the publicly available alphamelts executable. When minor bug fixes are made to
scripts or example files, between alphaMELTS releases, a link to the appropriately
dated GitList version of the file(s) will be given on the alphaMELTS
support page.

Linux alphaMELTS is available for 32-bit and 64-bit
architectures. The executables were built on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (llvm 3.8). They should run on
other systems but if not please let us know, including the OS version and the output of
'gcc -v'.

Mac OS X alphaMELTS is available for Intel
processors only. Admin privileges are not required.

WSL alphaMELTS is the
recommended way to use the software on 64-bit Windows 10 (as of v1.8), as the the Linux installation
includes Perl etc. WSL does require admin access for initial set up but not for updating alphaMELTS.

Windows alphaMELTS is supported on Windows 7 and 10,
but should work on other versions. alphaMELTS requires the
Perl
program to be installed. MATLAB contains a small Perl installation,
or for users without admin access we recommend the portable version of
Strawberry Perl.

VM alphaMELTS is a lightweight
Linux (Lubuntu 32-bit)
installation that will be of most use to Windows users. It comes with the latest versions
of alphaMELTS and rhyolite-MELTS pre-installed. Users will need the
VirtualBox
program, which requires admin privileges for installation.